[Paroxysmal tonic upgaze of childhood].

We described a child who developed paroxysmal abnormal eye movement. At the age of 12 months, she had a high fever and a febrile seizure. On the next day she showed tonic upward deviation of the eyes for 1 to 2 seconds, and downward saccades on attempted downward gaze. The upward deviation was repeated for a period of 2 to 3 hours, and disappeared during sleep. The administration of L-dopa was not effective. The symptoms subsided gradually over 10 months without other neurological impairment. She walked alone at 1 year and 6 months. At the beginning of her walking she showed truncal ataxia, but it gradually disappeared and her development was normal at the age of 2 years and 6 months. These abnormal eye movements and another symptoms were similar to paroxysmal tonic upgaze of childhood (PTU) that has been first described by Ouvrier and Billson (1988) as intermittent upward deviations of eyes. In Japan there was only one report of this syndrome with periventricular leukomalacia and hypomyelination.